Sovereign Grace Chapel

In the aftermath of the Waldo Canyon fire and the resulting loss of hundreds of homes in Colorado Springs, comments abound about the age-old question about God’s sovereignty and His goodness.

Waldo Fire Hits Colorado Springs

Thousands of professing Christians were praying that this fire would not destroy homes, yet their prayers were not answered. Why, they ask, did God not intervene? Was he not able, or worse, not willing to act to prevent this?

One answer put forth was that God has turned this world over to Satan, and that, in affect, ‘the devil did it’. This seems to relieve God of any culpability in the matter. However, this does not square with the Bible, nor with the God who inspired the Bible.

While the Bible does say that Satan is the ‘god of this world’, this refers to his dominion over the spiritual condition of men’s souls. Everyone is born into this world with the corrupted sinful nature, and as a result, a slave to sin and to Satan. But this is not to say that Satan is without bounds. He, in fact, has no authority to exercise his will beyond God’s sovereign will. So from time to time God overrules Satan by reaching down to certain individuals, granting them the gifts of faith and repentance and frees them from this slavery. Satan has no power to prevent this from happening.

But what about the power over nature? Who’s in control of those things?

On Tuesday June 26th, the fire seemed to be well-defended, as the officials had established two separate lines with crews in place should the fire encroach the city. As the officials in charge were holding a 4PM news conference on the status of their efforts, an unexpected and powerful wind swooped down from the west, blowing the fire past both lines. They immediately ordered a complete evacuation of the area. The much-feared firestorm was on.

2000 years ago, there was another fierce wind that caused much anguish. On the sea of Galilee, Jesus and the disciples were in a fishing boat when a ‘furious squall came up’. Waves broke over the boat and the men were fearing for their lives…well, except for Jesus. He was sound asleep. The disciples woke Him up in a panic. “Don’t you care if we drown?”

Standing up, Jesus rebuked the wind and waves, saying “be still!”  Immediately, the winds died down and the sea became completely calm. And the disciples became even more fearful. “Who is this? Even the wind and waves obey Him!”

Jesus, the God-Man, has power over nature. This demonstration of power was performed in part to validate His claim as the prophesied Messiah. Combined with Jesus’ demonstrations of power over disease, over demons, over blindness, even over death, Jesus proved that He was God in the flesh, and omnipotent over all creation.
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The principle of His sovereignty over nature holds over all time periods and in all circumstances. This should put to rest any questions about God’s power over the Waldo fire — and the wind that blew it beyond the fire lines.

So, what about God’s goodness and His mercy? If He has the power, why did he not exercise it to prevent the destruction of hundreds of homes, not to mention those who lost their lives? This is a serious charge leveled at the Almighty.

It may be helpful to remember that entire created order has been subjected to God’s curse, due to one man’s rebellious act. Adam sinned, despite God’s warning that in that day of sin ‘you will surely die’. And we were all ‘in’ Adam, so in a very real sense, we all sinned with Adam. We now inherit his sinful nature and come into this world under God’s judicial review.

So death is a supernatural judgment of God. It is not ‘natural‘ — because in the beginning it was not so.

At one point during Jesus’ ministry, a question arose among the Israelites about a disaster that had occurred in Jerusalem. Eighteen people had been killed when a tower collapsed, killing those that happened to be walking by. What was it about these people that God allowed this to happen? Were they particularly sinful, to the point that God ended their lives?

Here was Jesus’ response. “Do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

This was not the answer that his followers expected. Rather, Jesus explained the universal condition of mankind — we are all culprits. We all face the looming judgment of God for our hostile acts that flow from our rebellious nature. Apart from God’s saving mercy on those who believe in the person and works of Jesus, and repent from their sins, none will escape God’s perfect judgment.

In the Waldo Canyon fire, there was much mercy of God evident. The powerful wind that caused the firestorm did not occur until three days after the fire began. During this time, fire officials had time to amass the men and equipment to defend the city. This mobilization took that amount of time to stage up. Once the fire breached those lines, fire fighters fell back to Centennial Boulevard. There they made their stand, knowing that if the fire breached that line, much of the city would have been lost. They had hundreds of men and a massive amount of equipment at their disposal — because they had three days to prepare. Without that time, much of Colorado Springs would have been lost.

So God did show His mercy in the midst of the fire fight. The city is now safe again. But what will be the response of us citizens. Shall we take heed? Shall we make use of this brief reprieve? Shall we repent and believe?

(The following is republished by permission from the author)

The brilliant religion commentator for the New York Times, Ross Douthat, in Bad Religion(2012) concludes that while postmodernism has produced an exhausting “relativism and rootlessness that has weakened the church,” a revival of Christianity can be envisaged. Reviewer Tim Keller states that Douthat sees no “next big thing” on the horizon to oppose Christianity. I must differ from Douthat and with all who fail to see the power of the contemporary revival of apostate “Christian” liberalism, revitalized by a natural alliance with the progressive spiritual neo-paganism now dominating our culture.

Diana Butler Bass, in Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening (2012), triumphantly announces the advent of “the Fourth Great Awakening.” Emergent activist Shane Claibourne hails this as “new life budding from the compost of Christendom.” For Brian McLaren, Bass’s prophetic voice is “provocative, inspiring…a sage guidance for the future.” Does the term “Great Awakening” indicate a reclaiming of 18^th century Gospel orthodoxy? Not a chance!

For Bass “religionless Christianity” is the elimination of creeds and dogmas, of authority structures and inhibiting moral codes, of a propositional, inerrant Bible. She hails a movement borne along on the breath of an undefined “Spirit” into an age of pure inner experience. This Awakening has nothing to do with historic Christianity. Bass notes that “Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists have been undergoing similar revitalizations” and concludes that “the next great awakening will have to be an interfaith awakening” because “the 1970s were…the first stirrings of a new spiritual awakening, consisting of the encounter of Western and Eastern religions and …[the incorporation] of each other’s practices into their respective faiths.”

Such an “interfaith” One-ist view of the Spirit involves a radical redefinition of God that ditches “submitting to a transcendent—and often distant-God” in favor of “finding one’s self in God and find[ing] God in one’s self.” This involves praying to God as “our Mother”  and seeing the godhead “in less dualistic [Two-ist] terms,…less in terms of an absolutist, sin-hating, death-dealing ‘almighty Father in Heaven’ and more in terms of…the nourishing spirit of mother earth.”

I am sorry. These statements are pure pagan One-ism. The union of Nature with the divine jettisons the transcendent God of the Bible and removes any need for a divine Savior, so Bass’s “Christology” becomes pagan Gnosticism.  In the biblical Gospels, Jesus’ question, “Whom do you say that I am?” gives rise to the heavenly revelation of his divine nature. For Bass, the question “plunges Jesus’ friends into …the self-query, ‘And who am I?’” This question, not in the biblical text, is precisely where the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, goes. “Jesus” tells Thomas not to call him Lord because he and Thomas are of equal status. Knowledge of the self as divine is true salvation. Bass shows this by citing the Gnostic Book of Thomas the Contender:  “…he who has known himself has already understood the depth of all things.”

Such a Christology empties the Gospel of all biblical content. As Bass puts it, “Salvation is not…escaping some dreadful fate of judgment…at the hands of a wrathful God; rather, it is being saved to ourselves.” She leaves no place for the cross or the atonement. The “Spirit” now at work since the Sixties is “a romantic spirit…[with] an ethic of self-realization.” Such moral-ism is salvation by works for the creation of “a global common good.” This “Awakening is actually something we can do”—delivering people from the “fear of women, Islam, pluralism, environmentalism, and homosexuality.”

Bass’s new faith is paraphrased by the title of a recent Unitarian sermon, “Hindu and Unitarian Universalist Encounter and Transformation on the Way toward a New Universalism”; her kind of thinking allows Oprah Winfrey to call herself a Christian while assiduously following the Hindu mysticism of Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle; her vision is the very content of the present day revival of religious paganism, animated since the turn of the 20^th century by the occult vision of Madame Blavatsky who saw in the joining of the East and the West the final achievement of spiritual One-ism.

So in this time of emerging “new universalism,” when it is becoming illegal to teach from certain Bible texts, how many “believers” will find their way into the suffocating arms of religionless Gospel-less Christianity? How many of our theologically-starved rising generation of young Christians, under the enormous influence of Emergent leaders who love Bass, will be lost to the only Faith that can save them?

In light of this “next big thing” we do need a revival—of biblical Truth, but it will not be easy. Pray that the Lord will revive his church by courageous preaching of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, the only power of God unto salvation.

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You may have heard this latest catch-phrase being bantered about by various people — both in support and in opposition to the concept. This slogan effectively communicates in three short words a whole body of religious thought. It was a phrase first adopted by the Unitarian Universalists, but now has found its way into New Evangelical churches as well. For example, the Washington Post reported the following:

Emperor Constantine (center) and the Fathers of the First Council of Nicaea of 325 as holding the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed of 381

Rick Warren, a megachurch pastor and philanthropist who is courted by political leaders worldwide, says he thinks Christianity needs a “second Reformation” that would steer the church away from divisive politics and be “about deeds, not creeds.”

This slogan fits every-so-nicely into a growing Gnostic worldview — a worldview that erases all distinctions which, in this case, creeds effectively created. The ancient creeds, such as the Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed and the Chalcedon Creed were all written to battle Gnostic teachings that were propagated to undermine and destroy the Christian faith as articulated by the Apostles themselves.

These are the trusted and very dependable overhauls proffering elite erectile dysfunction treatments. cialis without The ageing male usa cheap viagra experiences a reduction in the levels of gonadotropins can actually lead to various other physical and psychological health problems if not addressed and treated. The application oil free levitra sample is done in a way that not only improves your sexual life, but also affect your self-esteem and confidence level by refraining you from indulging in any sexual activity. Affordability: Helping Relationships cialis 100mg tablets, the much publicized anti ED medicine is extremely expensive. Also, Creeds were created to affirm certain crucial historical events and the sovereign God who directed those events to occur. They summarized the facts of history, and as such, were not an affirmation of religious feelings or sentiments. They were affirming historical realities. So, when the Nicene Creed begins by stating ‘We believe’, one was affirming the reality of historic events.

We Christians like to talk about ‘preaching the gospel’, yet we miss the original meaning of the word, ‘gospel’. This word was used by the Roman world in a journalistic sense. It was a word to describe a very positive and noteworthy event. If the Roman army had successfully and decisively won a battle, the general would send a messenger back to Rome with a ‘gospel’ — that is, a report of the good news. This is why today, we sometimes say the ‘good news of the gospel’. Technically, this is redundant, because ‘gospel’ means ‘a good news report’. All of this is to make the point that the Christian Gospel is declaring to the world some very good news of certain historical events.

So, New Evangelicalism and the Emerging Church movements, who are moving the so-called Christian church toward ‘deeds, not creeds’, is really seeking to negate the importance of history — and specifically, the history related to Jesus Christ. Deeds cannot, and will not, ever, supplant the importance of the ‘gospel’ of Jesus Christ. We must always insist on belief in those historical events, as has been accurately and completely reported by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Deeds do not, in themselves, lead anyone to eternal life. In fact, they lead to eternal destruction. Creeds, to the extent they represent Biblical events (which the aforementioned creeds do), will indeed lead one to eternal life — if someone will merely BELIEVE them. And, that belief will result in deeds. Deeds must flow out of Creeds — otherwise, deeds are worthless.

So, I urge you to flee from New Evangelicalism and the Emerging Church. They are the modern-day expressions of Gnosticism. These settings will destroy you and your family.

Today, I’d like to put in a plug for Trinity Bible Institute which is direct ministry of Sovereign Grace Chapel. Classes will once again convene on Monday evening, September 5th. (For complete info, click here)

The Institute teaches Bible in full accordance to the doctrinal position of the SGC. This is an important point because any spiritual work that anyone undertakes must be under the direction and control of a church or a group of churches. The Lord Jesus established only one entity to carry out the work of Christianity, and that entity called ‘the Church’. Therefore, Bible institutes, seminaries, missionaries, and every other endeavor that goes forward under the banner of Christianity must be legitimized by the ‘Church’. Trinity Bible Institute was therefore established with this in mind.

This flies in the face of our current culture of para-church organizations, such as the Navigators, Youth for Christ, Young Life, Focus on the Family, Summit Ministries, Fuller Seminary and hundreds of others. If you look carefully, none of these ‘ministries’ are submissive to any church. They operate under the auspices of boards of directors, not boards of Elders. As a result, they are all illegitimate. I am convinced that God will not bless these works. This is why they all have lost their way, and are having zero impact on our world.

Submission to the church is one reason I believe in TBI and it’s mission.

TBI is a unique opportunity to learn the Bible in all it’s teachings. TBI approaches the Bible from the standpoint of inerrancy, as we are convinced that inerrancy must be the bedrock of any inquiry into the Scriptures. Any other approach is grievously in error and demonstrates a total lack of piety.

These ducts tadalafil uk price converge together to form the common bile duct that brings bile from the gallbladder and liver into the duodenum, which is the first part of the small intestine (duodenum). Ginseng another effective herb is a great PE natural levitra 5mg online remedy. The standard incorporates 3 classes buy viagra in uk of products depending upon end use. Ideally, to agree in levitra samples advance about such an occurrence once the pain abates. Approaching the Bible as an inerrant work is another reason I believe in TBI.

TBI is a twelve year program and is designed so that the student may start at any point and begin his/her study. While twelve years may sound like a long time, we believe that it takes that amount of time cover a survey of all the information that every Christian needs to know. Furthermore, it takes that amount of time for someone to assimilate the information and allow it to shape and guide one’s life. It is our hope that at this end of the program, people will have absolute confidence in the Bible and in the God who gave it.

Getting an exposure to the entire field of knowledge pertaining to Christianity is yet another reason why I believe in TBI.

I have been attending TBI for almost 20 years, both as a student and as an instructor. I continue to attend and re-take courses because I always gain insight into things that I never saw before. The depth and riches of this type of study is incalculable, and I am living proof of it. I am now prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks about the reason for the hope that lies within.

Please consider attending this fall. I assure you, it will nourish your soul and cause you to grow beyond your expectations. Don’t let the token cost deceive you — others have paid tens of thousands of dollars to get what we almost give away. (For complete info, click here)

'Removing the stones of Folly' by Tonja Doskova. A prime example of Pagan and Gnostic concepts

I have a great sense of urgency about The Trojan Horse in the Church Seminar we are hosting on July 9th.  I cannot think of a more important topic to discuss than that of the imminent destruction of Christianity.  The topic for discussion that day will be Gnosticism, that Pagan-corrupting influence on the people who profess to be believers.  These concerns were cemented in my mind this weekend when my wife and I attended the annual Cherry Creek Arts Festival.

We have come to this for several years, so we have a perspective on the types of works we would see.  It is a highly prized honor for artists to be invited to display and sell their art at this annual event. But things have really changed over the years — and not for the better.

Let me start by saying quite emphatically that the quality of the artists — the creativity, the talent and the artistic skill is as good, if not better than it has ever been.  These men and women are at the top of the art world.  Of that, I have no doubt.  But that’s not the issue.  The issue is that their Pagan worldview is busting out on their canvases, and its not a pretty sight.

To make my point, I must digress for a moment.  A couple of weeks ago, I had a real ‘ah-ha’ moment when I was reading Dr. Peter Jones’ book ‘One or Two’.  (By the way, he’s speaking at our seminar July 9th — you really don’t want to miss this opportunity!)  He codified something for me that I hadn’t considered before, and it’s really been an eye-opener for me.  If you can grasp this one concept  about Gnosticism, you’ll be miles ahead of the pack.  It’ll change the way you look at the Pagan world around you.

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Within His created world, He continued with a series of very significant distinctions.  When He created man, He made him His crowning glory of creation.  Still man is not God and God is not man.  They are very distinct.  Then he made a distinction between man and woman — man is not woman and woman is not man.  They are distinct.

Then he made distinctions in real estate.  He established nations and national borders.  Israel’s land and borders were to be distinct from every other nation’s land and borders.  He established distinctions between good and evil, right and wrong, mercy and justice, heaven and hell, mankind and animal-kind, life and death, saved and unsaved, love and hate, Jew and Gentile, the Church and the World, the narrow path and the broad road.  Distinctions, distinctions, distinctions.  They are everywhere if you just look for them.  This is the ‘two’ of Dr. Jones’ Book title.

This is where Gnosticism comes into play. Fundamentally, it is a Satanically-inspired attack on God, God’s people and God’s creation.  And what is its tactic?  Simple.  It seeks to destroy these very distinctions.  It wants to erase them, obscure them, merge them, confuse them or deny them.  And mankind is all too willing to go along.

Back to the Cherry Creek Arts Festival.  What we saw there were various forms of Gnostic distortions of God’s distinctions.  You have images of man confused with animals, man merged into a woman, the earth exalted as God, man elevated to Godhood, ugly merged with beauty, the sacred confused with the profane, death confused with life, and on and on.  The result is an art festival that impressed us as cold, stark, desolate, colorless, profane and altogether uninspiring.   Welcome to Paganism.

So, think about the healthy and wholesome distinctions that God established in the world.  There’s lots more than those I mentioned above.  And wherever you see a blurring of those distinctions, think Gnosticism!

This is where we’re headed as a culture unless the Christian church regains its senses and wages a holy war against the Trojan Horse.  The confusion of distinctions is everywhere in the Church.   Let’s begin by attending our seminar on July 9th.  These issues are way too important to ignore.  Please come.